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From Pipeline To Financial Casino
- Enron transformed from a boring pipeline company into a financialized trading monopoly driven by stockprice incentives.
- That shift made speculative revenue and mark-to-market accounting central to its rise and later collapse.
Accounting That Rewards Fantasy
- Enron used mark-to-market accounting to book expected future profits as current income.
- That method required ever-larger fake deals to sustain reported earnings and stock price.
Manufacturing A Power Crisis
- Enron deliberately created phantom congestion on California transmission lines and sold power back at huge markups.
- They called internal tactics names like the "death star" strategy while triggering brownouts and rationing.